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Sunday, July 24, 2016

SUNDAY REVIEW /NEW FICTION FROM MEGAN ABBOTT / A PREVIEW EXCERPT

From the about to be
released novel “You Will Know Me” on sale 7/26/16 by Little, Brown and
Company.Available: Barnes & Noble,
Amazon.http://meganabbott.com/knowme.html

THE PARTY

Go Devon! Knox Rox!
Next Stop: Elite Qualifiers!

BelStars 4-Ever!
Regional Champs!

The vinyl banners
rippled from the air vent, the restaurant roiling with parents, the bobbing of
gymnast heads, music gushing from the weighty speakers keeled on the window
ledges.

Slung
around Devon's neck were three medals, two silver and one gold, her first
regional-champion title on the vault.

"I'm
so proud of you, sweetie," Katie whispered in her daughter's ear.
"You can do anything."

Later,
Katie would come to think of that night as the key to everything that came
after, the secret code.

But
at the time, it was just another party, a celebration like dozens of others,
all to honor their exceptional fifteen-year-old daughter.

Megan Abbott

In
six months, Devon would compete in Elite Qualifiers and, after years of
bruising toil and hamstring tears and $25,000 in credit-card debt and one
fateful misstep at her last qualifier, would at last assume the mantle of
Senior Elite. From there, anything felt possible.

Everything
was glowing: the disco ball spinning above, and the Sterno lights flickering
under the kebabs and lomi-lomi atop long tables skirted with raffia, candles in
coconut shells and pineapples that Katie had helped hollow out with ice cream
scoopers.

Everyone
was wearing leis in honor of the booster club's Polynesian theme, and Katie
spotted Devon smelling hers, the only one made with real orchids, purple and
green, the exalted Coach T. having draped it over her head as she walked under
the thatched arch to great applause.

Hail
our Devon, he'd intoned, that big voice of his, for the future of BelStars
rests on these powerful shoulders!

It
was the giddiest Katie had ever seen her daughter. Maybe it was the night, or
the plastic cup of rum-spiked punch Eric let her have, offering some small
release from the tight pincers that held her constantly.

In
a corner, her son, Drew, sat with two other quiet fourth-grade boys, eating
frozen bananas dipped in chocolate, their heads craned over handheld games. He
was quieter than usual, scolded earlier for spilling, or pouring, chocolate
milk all over Devon's perfectly softened good-luck grips.

"But
Devon never gets in trouble," he'd said. "Not for sassing, or doing
the treadmill when she's supposed to rest her knee. Not even for sneaking out
at night."

"I
never snuck out," Devon had insisted.

"You
were dreaming," Katie had reminded him. He was always dreaming about his
sister, saying he'd heard her, seen her doing things impossible and forbidden.
Mom, Devon was on the roof, flying. Her bed was on fire, Dad. When he was
little, he used to dream she had claws for feet.

"Buddy,"
Eric had said. "Let your sister have her night."

But
Katie had whispered a promise to him: all the coconut cake and pineapple kebabs
he wanted as long as he behaved.

By
her second cocktail, fabric petals tickling her cheek, Katie had forgotten
about Drew's misdeed, forgotten even about the uncomfortable moment, hours
before at the stadium, a dozen rows ahead of them in the stands, that
beet-faced dad in the GymDreamz cap, upset over his daughter's ranking, who'd
shouted that disgusting thing (Devon Knox! Devon sucks c—), only stopping,
midsentence, at his wife's glare.

But
Eric had heard it. She could tell by the way his back stiffened, his jaw
tightened.

She'd
grabbed for his hand. Held it firmly.

But
the moment passed, and now Eric stood at one of the banquet tables, carving the
glistening ham, pink as a newborn.

Coach
Teddy, a parasol'd mai tai impossibly dainty in his bear-paw hand, pulled Katie
aside and said he was counting every second until July's qualifiers, when Devon
would gain Senior Elite status and everyone would finally see.

And
Katie did, peering through the candy-colored crowd at the poppy and cobalt of
Devon's jacket, its sparkling BelStars logo.

Less
than five feet tall, a hard, smooth shell of a body. Hipless, breastless still,
but the way she'd transformed her body in the last two years, thighs like
trunks, shoulders and biceps straining her tank-top straps, staggered Katie.

"The
world is hers now. Is yours. Is ours," Teddy said, then diving in for a
loud rummy smack of a kiss flush on Katie's lips.

"Just
like I promised, Katie-did!"

Had
that really happened?

It
had, and it all made sense that night, the holy consummation of everything.

"I
wish I could do what you do," Kirsten Siefert kept saying to Katie.
"I want it for Jordan. I want to know everything you did. If it's not too
late. Have you seen Jordan's breasts? But Tansy's only seven..."

The
music boomed louder, and soon enough the adults started dancing, taking over
the playlist from the endless thump and squeal of teen pop and club music,
playing every song they'd loved15 years before, every opening chord releasing a
chorus of Yeahs and Oh God, remember?

Later,
she found herself dancing with Eric (which hadn't happened in years, since that
night they'd snuck to the hotel bar after a TOPs meet, Devon and Drew asleep
upstairs, that lounge singer inexplicably crooning "Smells Like Teen
Spirit").

Eric
had always been a terrific dancer, and the championship and the lanterned
loveliness of the old catering hall—they all enlivened him, his smile and his
fingers moving so delicately, his arm grabbing her so firmly, and didn't
everyone in the hall look at them?

A
thought came to her rum-soaked head, He's never loved me more than this.
Because of Devon. Because of Devon. Something else I owe Devon.

Then,
the starry new arrivals: Coach's niece Hailey, yanking at the hand of that
boyfriend of hers, Ryan Beck, both of them so tanned and love-blissed.

This
would be the piece that mattered most later, months later when Ryan was gone.
She would think of their arrival and wonder why she hadn't seen it all coming.
But who could have seen anything at all that night but their bright-spangled
beauty?

Hailey,
the favored junior tumbling coach, blond and magnificent, a towering five feet
seven, and Ryan, whose appearance sent all the girls into satellites of
whispered frenzy.

"The
only one here more handsome than your husband," said Becca Plonski,
laughing.

The
music kept getting louder, the Forbidden Tiki playlist spinning, and Greg
Siefert corralled Katie, pitcher of blue Hawaiians in one hand, reaching for
hers with the other, and he was telling a story about Eric shouting at some man
in the parking lot.

"It
was great, it was great. That one who'd been talking trash about our Devon. And
Eric just let him have it. Hell, I was glad to see it."

…But
Katie was drunk, and it didn't register, the music loud in a way that reminded
her of when loud music was an urgent necessity, a full-body sensation, and the
next thing she knew she was back at the punch bowl and Greg was limboing with
Hailey, freckled and game.

Then
came the part that seemed like nothing at the time. Months later, after Ryan
was gone, its meaning would change, as if by magic, every time Katie thought
about it:

Ryan,
dark-haired and grinning, took Katie's hand, spun her once, twice, three times,
to a power ballad she remembered from age fourteen, an art-class infatuation, a
fumbled encounter behind the shop room, then another girl and her heart
breaking.

Before
she knew it, though, Hailey was grabbing him back, a wink and a gleam in her
eye like, Don't you dare, he's mine!

At
some point, she lost Devon, but there was Eric talking to Gwen Weaver on the
chilly loading dock, sharing a purloined cigarette and laughing like they'd
been shouting for hours.

Everyone
was smoking, it turned out. She'd even caught Ryan sneaking a puff in the
hallway, the back door propped open, the cold air giving her goose bumps.

Ryan,
who smelled like soap and had the nicked, brambled hands of a cook.

Finally,
she and Eric shared one last dance before everything broke, and pressing
against his shirt she smelled candle wax and a dozen perfumes; he was teasing
her about the coconut husk furred onto her chest from the dance with Greg
Siefert, or Bobby, or Ryan, who'd since been charged with making something called
a momtini, carrying a tray for all the ladies.

Crushed
cocktail parasols gathered on the sills and crumpled leis in the corners like
parade remnants catching on her feet, heels too high, too narrow, and she found
Devon in the restroom, washing her face, washing all the performance makeup
away.

Turning
to her mother, she looked oddly blank.

For
a second, Katie wondered about that look, but the second passed, and then there
was more dancing, and more visits to the punch bowl, and the next morning she
would puzzle over when she'd even been outside, finding grass blades between
her toes, dried mud on the pad of her foot.

The
ride home, Devon covered her head and wouldn't speak, and they thought she'd
probably had more than one glass of punch but left her to it.

And
then Drew, gorged on coconut cake, threw up into Katie's hands.

But
none of it mattered, everything felt wonderful and she and Eric laughed and
laughed.

The
morning after the party, Katie turned over and saw a violet smear on her
pillowcase.

It
took her a while to remember. After midnight, trundling Drew across the
ice-ribbed parking lot and into the car, Eric still inside, trying to find
Devon, saying final good-byes.

A
tap on the shoulder and it was Ryan Beck again. Smiling that
chipped-front-tooth smile.

"Devon's?"
he asked. Dangling from his open palm was a familiar lei, purple and green
orchids, petals shredded. "I found it over by the dumpsters."

"What
a shame," Katie said, feeling it more sharply than she should, blaming it
on the rum. "Thanks."

He
draped it over her head, its dampness tickling her, his sneakers nearly
slipping on the rimy concrete. A squeak, a skid. Later, she would wonder if
he'd slipped like that on Ash Road seconds before he died, his sneakers on the
sandy gravel as the headlights came.

"Careful,"
Katie said, a catch in her voice. "It's not safe."

"Nothing
ever is," he said, winking, his white T glowing under the lights, backing
away, into the dark of the emptying lot. "Good night, Mrs. Knox. Good
night."